Title: Into The Woods
Chapter 7

~~~~~~~~~~

Camping wasn’t exactly how Dean remembered it. He recalled it as fun and relaxing, and their first day had been just that, but today was a lot less fun than it should have been. Now wasn’t measuring up to his nostalgia. Not that now was bad, it was simply different.

The angels had left an hour earlier, Abigael muttering about payback. They hadn’t heard or seen them since. So far, nothing too bad had happened, but he had to wonder if they were on borrowed time. Could they manage to get through another day and two nights without big trouble?

Sam and Gwen were cuddled together sitting on the ground on the opposite side of the fire and Sean was in his carrier dozing, while Jack played on the ground between Dean and Jo’s chairs.

He glanced at Jo. She was staring at the fire and looked half asleep, bundled up in her coat with a blanket around her. He was about to suggest they make s’mores early when Jack stood up beside him.

“Daddy, look! I found a snake!” He held up a wiggling snake right in front of Dean.

Dean’s heart seemed to stop beating in his chest for several long seconds before he identified the snake as the average and harmless garden variety. “Jack, put the snake down.”

“Okay.” He dropped it.

It fell by Jo’s foot and she raised her feet with an indrawn breath. “Not here! Take it over to the path and get rid of it.” In the dim light from the fire, Dean could tell she was trying not to scream hysterically. Snakes were the things that freaked her out the most. He remembered the Medusa case they’d once had where Jo had spent over an hour trying to wash off ‘snake cooties’ after accidentally touching the creature’s live snake hair.

Gwen got up from her chair and bent. “I’ll get it.” She picked it up and hurried several steps towards the path to the angel camp, tossing the snake. Returning, she washed her hands. “It’s gone, Jo. You can put your feet back down and breathe again.”

“Snakes are gross and disgusting. I don’t know how any of you can pick one up. Yuck!” Jo shivered.

“Jack.” Dean gently pulled the boy to him and lifted him up onto his lap. “We talked about picking up things like that before we even got in the car to come here. What did mommy and I say?”

“No picking up snakes or spiders or bugs or frogs or beetles.”

“Apologize for dropping the snake on mommy’s foot.”

“I’m sorry mommy.”

Jo settled back down in her chair. “No harm done. It’s gone. It better be gone. Why don’t we go ahead and have s’mores?”

“Excellent idea.” Dean could eat a few of the treats right now.

“I’ll get everything.” Gwen got up to get out the supplies.

He held on to Jack to keep him out of the way.

What should have taken a minute at most turned into a search where Gwen opened every container. “I know we had graham crackers. I saw them this morning. They’re just not here now.”

When all eyes turned to Dean, even Jack’s, he held up a hand. “Hey, it wasn’t me. I like graham crackers in things, not plain.”

“I’ll go see if we can borrow the ones the angels had.” Jo stood, tugged her blanket tighter around herself and reached for one flashlight. “Not like they’ll eat them anyway. I’ll be back in a bit.” She turned on the flashlight and headed for the path. The snake must have been gone because there were no screams.

Time passed and Dean squinted at his watch. What was taking Jo so long? The light faded even further, Sam taking Jack to the pee pit. Dean slouched down in his chair and let his head drop to one side as he observed Gwen adding wood to the fire. He saw movement around her ankles and there was just enough light to get a decent look at the creature that had joined them.

“Um…Gwen?”

“Yeah?” She continued to add pieces of wood to the fire, not appearing to notice the small creature.

On one hand, the humor of her with a skunk under her was too good to ignore. On the other, he didn’t think they had any tomato juice in case it sprayed. “You want to not make any sudden moves.”

“Why?” She glanced over her shoulder at him, hand paused by the wood she was moving onto the fire.

“Well….”

Sam and Jack chose that moment to return from the pee pit, Jack exclaiming, “Kitty! You got a kitty!”

“That’s not a kitty,” Sam said, making a grab for Jack’s arm. “Um…Gwen? Don’t move.”

Slowly, Gwen peered down at the creature. It nuzzled against her ankles and legs like the cat back home did. “Oh, crap. I can’t move or it’ll spray, won’t it?”

“I want the kitty, daddy.” Jack strained against Sam’s grip on him.

“It’s not a cat.” Dean slowly sat up in his chair. “Keep a hold on him, Sam. Jack, it’s a skunk. See the white on it? Cats don’t usually have coloring like that.”

“Guys?” Gwen cleared her throat. “My thigh muscles are screaming right now.”

“I don’t think any of us can move.” Sam slowly backed away with Jack.

The skunk sniffed at the ground, made it’s way over to the carrier, sniffed at Sean’s feet, then ambled back to where Dean sat. He waited for the stench of skunk to permeate the air and was frankly surprised when it didn’t happen. The creature headed off into the woods.

Gwen sat hard on the ground. “I’ve never had anything like that happen before.” She uttered a half laugh. “That was weird.”

“Weird is fine,” Dean told her. “As long as it’s not the bad sort of weird.”

There was the sound of a throat clearing and Jo stepped into the camp, wiggling the package of graham crackers in her hand. “I got them. I also got ‘Uzziel-ed’. He wouldn’t stop talking.” She frowned, looking at all of them. “What’s going on? What’d I miss?”

Dean couldn’t help laughing.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was early, barely even dawn. Castiel strolled along the edge of the water. When he’d claimed the day before that he didn’t know the number of attacks Abigael could expect, he’d been stretching the truth. He hadn’t known for certain the number of attacks by soldiers, though he had known they were only for the previous day. He wondered if she’d be pleased to know that she’d passed with only a few suggestions this time from the soldiers.

As for the guidelines, it was true the soldiers could only attack once. However, anyone else who was enlisted by Castiel after the official tests to attack her could continue to do so.

Exactly what he had planned for the day. He’d even rolled it into the paintball session Uzziel had planned. It was supposed to be fun, one team of two trying to get through a section of the woods without being tagged. They also had to take out the other angels on the way. He’d proposed that Abigael and Jael make up the team and he, Uzziel, and Balthazar be the ones pursuing, although with Balthazar still with Atropos at her camp, it might be just Uzziel and Castiel. Once they were done with the team challenge, they could move on to a free for all to win. That should take up a few hours and they could do a more thorough search of the area while they were out.

Searches hadn’t turned up whatever it was they were all sensing. Even Balthazar had noticed it before he’d decided Atropos was better company than any of them. Nothing about what they knew was out there had changed, it was simply there, waiting. He frowned, did a last sweep, and went to help Uzziel with the paintball supplies.

~~~~~~~~~

“Mommy.”

The whisper was close to her ear and Jo suppressed a sigh. It was too early. She wanted to stay in bed. The air mattress wasn’t completely flat this morning and it was somewhat comfortable. She could go back to sleep if Jack would just stop talking to her.

“Mommy.”

“What,” she whispered back. A warm body moved against her midsection and she frowned. How was Jack talking in her ear when he was down by her stomach?

“Kitty came to sleep with you.”

Kitty? Her eyes popped open. Raising her head, she glanced down and saw a skunk cuddled against her stomach sound asleep. She sucked in an alarmed breath.

Jack came into view, crawling over her legs and lying down. He pressed his cheek against the skunk like he did with the stray cat back at the house. “Good kitty.”

“Sweetie, that’s not a cat. It’s a skunk.”

“Kitty.”

“Skunk. See the stripe?”

“Kitty.” He petted it. “Nice kitty. It’s Kitty nummer two. Kitty Two.”

Jo swallowed hard. “Where’s daddy,” she whispered, barely daring to breathe. What was with Jack’s insistence that the damn thing was a cat?

“Daddy got coffee.”

“Go get him very slowly and be quiet.”

“Okay.” He crawled over her again. “Come on, Kitty Two. We get daddy for mommy.”

Amazingly, the skunk yawned, stretched, and followed him out of the tent. Jo breathed a sigh of relief. “My son is Dr. Doolittle,” she said to thin air.

In seconds came Dean’s startled and somewhat strangled cry. “Jack! Get away from the skunk! I told you last night it’s not a cat.”

Jo rolled over and waited. The flap opened.

Dean filled the opening. “I thought the flap was closed, Jo.”

“It followed him. It got up and followed him when he told it to. That’s bizarre.”

“Maybe it’s his superpower.” A small grin quirked his lips. “You want to sleep some more? I’ll double check the flap this time.”

“No, let’s get moving. What’s on the agenda? More fishing?”

“No. At least not this morning. For us, I thought a nature hike going south about mid-morning. The angels are playing paintball to the north then and I think we should clear out while mayhem ensues and Abigael gets her revenge on Cas. I fully expect to see him covered in paint later.”

“Paintball?” She pushed up to sit and smiled at the idea of the angels playing paintball. It was a surprisingly normal team-building thing to do, though she would have thought it’d go better with more angels to form teams with. “Let me guess. Uzziel?”

“You know it.” Leaning in, he planted a kiss on her lips. “You want breakfast?”

“What’s on?”

“Oatmeal courtesy of Gwen. We had a visitor sometime in the middle of the night. The marshmallows and about half our food is gone. Has the marks of a raccoon all over the theft.”

“I thought we had everything locked down tight.”

“We did. I checked before I came to bed last night, but the theft happened anyway.”

“Awesome. Snakes, skunks, raccoons. It’s wild kingdom in our camp. I’ll pass. Just hand me in some crackers.”

He licked his lips and glanced over his shoulder. “Sorry to say, those are gone, too. The mangled package was near the pee pit. Sam consented to ask one of the angels to retrieve more for you seeing as how it’s an emergency.”

“Nice. I’ll just lie down until they get here.” About half an hour and a few crackers later, Jo emerged from the tent, stood and stretched. She greeted Uzziel with a thank-you for bringing the crackers.

“Castiel went immediately when Sam told him what had happened.”

“Thank him for me.”

“I will. He’s laying out a few traps right now or he’d be here.”

“Right. The paintball. Have fun.” The more she thought about it, the funnier angels playing paintball seemed. “Build some good team trust.”

He nodded. “Thank you, Jo. I look forward to the experience. Castiel and I are already deciding strategy and I believe Abigael and Jael are as well. They were deep in conversation when I came here.”

She found that she was actually having fun. Her phone had chirped a few times with more get well messages from Marissa (amazing that she even had service out here) and the angels were a great source of lighthearted amusement. She half suspected them of trying to help Dean make sure the trip was fun for her. “Alright, family. Let’s get this day going. Gwen, let’s take the boys by the water and see if we can’t see any fish, or frogs, or something and let the guys finish the coffee and clean up.”

Dean, Sam, and Gwen all stared at her.

“What?”

“Are you okay,” Sam asked, pouring himself more coffee.

“I’m great. I’m getting into the camping spirit, so…let’s do this.”

The three exchanged a bemused glance and Dean shrugged. “Sound like a plan, Jo. We’ll take care of things here.”

“We’ll be back in a bit.”

Jack was full of energy, Gwen was looking at her like she didn’t quite know what to think about Jo’s good mood, and Sean had an alert stare for everything. Jo put her hands in her pockets and was just happy that she didn’t have any nausea at all for the first time in weeks.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jo’s mood seemed to be improving while everyone else’s plummeted. It was an interesting mystery as to why she was so chipper, but Dean was too tired to think much about it. He was merely glad she was apparently enjoying herself.

“I’ve been meaning to ask.” Uzziel stepped towards the tents. He appeared to be in no hurry to return to his own camp. “Why is your tent so much bigger than the other one? Is it due to your small child?”

“No.” Dean glanced up from his coffee. He hadn’t felt this sleep deprived since Jack was a couple days old. He’d barely slept at all, unable to get comfortable, while Jo and Jack had gone right to sleep. Every pebble and rock under the tent was congregated right beneath his sleeping bag and the mattress. “It’s more because my wife doesn’t camp. Bribery. Jo wouldn’t camp in a smaller tent.”

“They have to have a bigger tent so the air mattress fits.” Sam pulled open the flap to show him. “See? It just fits in there.”

“I measured,” Dean told him. He and the salesman had crawled around with a measuring tape making sure.

“How come Sam and Gwen don’t have one?”

“We don’t need one.” Sam let the flap fall and put his hands in his pockets.

“We might as well not have the stupid thing anyway,” Dean said after making sure Jo, Gwen, and the kids were out of earshot. “It goes flat and there’s a boulder field underneath. I could barely get up this morning. Had a back spasm. Do you know how painful those are?”

“That’s probably more from having been thrown against walls, headstones, desks, tables, and across rooms for twenty years than a few pebbles on the ground under your mattress.” Sam looked like he was trying not to grin.

“Boulders,” Dean insisted. “I wanted the family sized tent that would have fit all of us. It was awesome.” That tent had been a beauty, but no way could he have gotten it home and then set up here without Jo noticing it.

Uzziel seemed to perk up. “The one with the awning at either end? Big enough to stand up in? Displayed with cots, chairs, and tables at the Everything Camping Outlet?”

He pointed a finger at Uzziel. “That’s the one.”

“That was a fantastic tent.”

“I know, right? Sam said it was too big.”

Sam’s snort was soft. “Dean, it would have covered this entire clearing.”

“But it would have been nice. Admit it, Sam. We could have sat under the awning --”

“We have trees all overhead. There’s shade without needing an awning. And we already had two tents. Three if you count this one here you bought after you told Jo about the trip.”

After her reaction, Dean had taken Sam with him and driven to the outlet to purchase a bigger tent and an air mattress. They’d barely gotten there before closing.

“We don’t need a huge family tent. Remember when we didn’t even use tents? Sleeping under the stars?”

“Of course I remember. I was there and, as I recall, it poured rain that last time. We were soaked and I got sick from it.”

“You were getting sick before we camped out.”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“It never is and you were cranky for days. We didn’t even buy a tent until you started seeing Jo and had visions of enticing her camping running through your head. You knew even then that she wasn’t the camping kind of woman. She showed no interest in it at all. The tent was stored at Bobby’s until a couple weeks ago when you had this idea.”

The second tent was Gwen’s tent and Dean had actually had a tent before that point. He drank the last swallow of his coffee and admitted, “I had another tent, Sam. With Lisa and Ben. Ben more than her.” He was finding that time had made the memories easier to talk about, especially since he now knew Ben never considered that he’d failed as a father to him. “We set it up in the backyard a couple times. Ben and I slept in it, cooked on one of those portable fire pit things Lisa borrowed from a friend of hers.” He recalled Lisa claiming she was expecting a call and didn’t want to interrupt the backyard camping by taking it outside. He and Ben had stayed outside the entire night with her only coming out a few times to bring them things like marshmallows. “She wouldn’t come out with us and stay. At the time, I thought she didn’t want to intrude on the time I was having with Ben.”

He saw a wariness in Sam’s eyes, like he was wondering if he should say something or not.

“But it wasn’t that and I know better now.” He began to clean up from breakfast. “Jo doesn’t like camping, but she came. She’s been participating and a good sport about it. She’s here even though she doesn’t want to be.”

Uzziel half turned to look in the direction Jo and Gwen had gone. “Trust me, Dean. She wants to be here with you.” He smiled softly. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I have to go play paintball.”

“Heaven help us,” Dean murmured. “Angels playing paintball.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Sam added as Uzziel disappeared.

With Sam’s help, cleaning up didn’t take long and they were ready for when Jo and Gwen came back. Jack was psyched for the hike and as soon as Sam changed Sean, they were ready to go.